It Had to Be Rain
by truhekili
Summary: Post Season 6 Finale/ late season 7. Begins with Izzie's funeral. Pairing: Alex/Meredith. Fab3 friendship. Mentions of Cristina/Burke. All characters property of ABC Studios. One shot. Complete.


They laughed at Izzie's funeral, too.

It shattered McDreamy. He wasn't a laugher; he was a crier.

He hadn't laughed at the shootings, either, or at the second baby that wasn't, or at the uterus that hated him.

He hadn't laughed at the bright spring sunshine that danced across the gleaming casket, and he didn't get the hilarity that echoed through the house as Tequila bottles emptied. He didn't get any of it, had never gotten it, would never get it, and the laughter didn't stop when he fled to New York for good.

Owen didn't get the laughter, either, not as they spread delicate white lilies over the grave stone.

He'd thought Cristina was different, after the shootings. He thought she was a crier, too, back when she cowered under a heavy blanket, clinging to him. She wasn't that woman, though, wasn't that woman at all, and the laughter just intensified, harsh and manic, until the divorce papers – mailed months later from somewhere in Chicago, where Teddy worked now - slid under her fingers.

Izzie would've expected him to cry. She'd seem him cry, and even blabbed about it to Mere.

She'd expect him to cry. But be wouldn't. He'd just stand between them, Mere and Yang, unblinking into the breeze, as some preacher babbled about love and forgiveness. He wasn't a widower anyway, wasn't anything to her. She'd made that clear in more ways than he could count.

He'd stand there, unblinking, ignoring the faint mist that began to fall, until he could no longer keep a straight face, either.

The laughter continued for months afterward, when it was just the three of them in the house. They laughed about all of it, about broken marriages and broken promises and broken booze bottles.

It echoed around the house, sweeping over the faded floor boards where Ellis nearly drowned in her own blood, and the polished counter where Ava slit her wrists. It rustled the bed skirts where Izzie screwed a ghost, and rattled the hallway where Cristina pledged her life to a stranger.

They laughed when Burke returned to seize the throne he'd been destined for, and laughed louder when he became Chief, and claimed Cristina for his queen.

They laughed when it was just the two of them, finally, laughed as her bed slammed the wall again, and again, and again, until the old framed post it note clattered to the floor, its shattering glass drowned out by deep, frantic moans.

They laughed for years, and laughed harder when the stick turned blue, twice.

They laughed more after that, and laughed harder when they dropped the kids off at Burke and Cristina's, on another bright spring morning, laughed halfway across the country – past waves of amber grain.

No funeral procession stretched before them this time – just rows of simple, polished marble stones, gleaming in the brilliant May sunrise. A faint breeze stirred, ruffling their hair, and she watched for hours as he knelt by the grave marker, slowly tracing his finger over the "v" in his mother's name.

She drops beside him, snakes her arms around his thin jacket as she presses tightly against his back, and feels his heart beat ricocheting in his chest, his body trembling as if it might shatter.

She tightens her grip, pressing closer to him, and feels the first few drops of water drizzling over her arm. She tells herself it's the rain, even though the day is still bright and sunny, and the sky a cloudless, vibrant blue.

It has to be rain, she tells herself again, as more drops fall – because they're laughers, not criers – and she hadn't come all this way to lose him now.

It had to be rain, because they could call it whatever they freaking wanted – yin/yang, light, dark, wave / particle - whatever the hell theory they had to prove that the universe was divisible by two.

But it all came down to the same equation, there were laughers and criers, and they lived on different sides of a world split right down the middle, with a gaping chasm between them - and mixed marriages weren't allowed.

It had to be rain, she insisted, frantically grabbing him tighter, as his body shuddered, and a faint mist singed her face.

It had to be rain, because he was dangling precariously over the precipice, and his weight was pulling her over with him, and she'd never let go of him now, never, even if the sky split open, and washed them both over the precipice in thunderous torrents, clear to the other side of the world.


End file.
